There are times when looking at the world can become overwhelming.
Everywhere you turn, you see suffering in your communities, instability in the larger culture, people who are struggling, systems that are not working well, and problems so large that it can be difficult to imagine what any one person could possibly do.
At those times, I often return to a simple question:
What is mine to do?
I have asked myself this question for many years, and I have offered it to others when they feel helpless in the face of something they care deeply about.
It is not a demand for an immediate answer.
Sometimes the most useful thing is simply to ask the question and allow it to remain in your awareness.
What is mine to do?
Then go on living your life.
Notice what catches your attention. Notice what continues to bother you. Notice the conversation you keep having, the person you unexpectedly meet, the organization someone mentions, the idea that appears while you are driving, walking, or making dinner.
The answer may arrive quickly or it may arrive months later. And sometimes it arrives somewhere entirely different from where you expected to find it.
The question is not asking you to solve everything you can see.
That distinction matters.
I cannot solve child hunger in the United States. The scale of the problem is far beyond anything I could personally address.
Yet I know there are children in a neighborhood near me who regularly go to school hungry. That bothers me, so I attend to those neighbors in a way
that has meaning and an appropriate scale for my family.
I’m practical. Bringing food, clothing, and other material needs to SisterHood doesn’t solve the complex issues that people in this neighborhood face. Yet, it serves in its small way to touch bellies, clothe kids, offer school supplies, and bring small relief to the adults and teens alike.
If that issue or any bothers you, you might volunteer with an organization that already knows how to reach those families. You might donate money or supplies. You might learn which organizations are doing the work particularly well, align with your values, and direct your resources there.
I do not have to solve hunger to feed someone. This is what I mean by working at scale.
Sometimes you become immobilized in helplessness because you are mentally standing in front of the entire problem.
Climate change. Poverty. Violence. Loneliness. Children who are struggling. Older adults who are forgotten. People without adequate medical care. Animals who need protection. Families who cannot afford food. Young adults unable to find jobs. Parents losing jobs.
The scale is enormous. Of course you feel helpless at times.
But somewhere between doing nothing and fixing everything is the size at which a human life can actually participate.
There may be a very particular intersection between what bothers you, what you know how to do, what you have access to, and what you genuinely have the energy to participate in.
That intersection may be what is yours.
Not necessarily the largest problem. Not necessarily the person suffering most. And not the thing that would look most meaningful or impressive to someone else.
You locate the place where your actual capacity meets an actual need.
Perhaps you have time or money. You may understand technology, gardens, children, finance, medicine, animals, education, construction, writing, or caregiving. Maybe you’re a great listener, know how to organize projects, make a room full of people feel welcome, or just know someone who knows someone.
Perhaps you have lived through something that allows you to sit beside another person without being frightened by what they are experiencing.
There is one important consideration here. It’s important to make sure you have enough space in your own life right now to help.
If not, make some notes for the future. The world will need you then. It doesn’t need one more stretched person adding something to their plate.
You might notice that you have some capacity here.
Then ask: Where could it actually be useful?
There is no guilt required in that question. No moral scorecard. No obligation to make your life into a service project.
There are problems you will perceive that are not yours to solve. There are people you will care about whom you cannot rescue. There are systems you may understand quite clearly and still have no meaningful ability to change.
Discernment includes knowing that too.
“What is mine to do?” is not another way of asking, “What should I be
doing?”
It is quieter than that. It requires listening. Sometimes this question asks something of you.
Agency. Capacity. Responsibility. Relationship.
This question invites additional thoughtful questions.
Can I act?
Can I tolerate what acting requires?
Can I take responsibility for the part that is actually mine?
Can I do that while remaining in relationship with the people around me?
These are not small capacities.
They are part of how a human being becomes able to participate in the world without either turning away from what matters or becoming consumed by everything that hurts.
You do not have to understand the whole web.
Nor do you have to carry the complexity of the world’s troubles. You only have to discover where your thread meets it.
If something in the world is troubling you and you do not know what to do with that feeling, perhaps you do not need to force an answer.
Simply ask the question:
What is mine to do?
Let it travel with you for a while. And then notice what Life places in front of you.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
Learn the one essential skill that allows you to face any challenge with confidence, sturdiness, and inner calm.
More than a technique. It’s a game changer.
ia Sophia has arrived. This “Way of Wisdom” offers an invitation to step upon a Living Spiral Path and discover a new understanding of what it means to embody the Mystical Feminine.
For the past fifteen years I have lived and taught within the Mystical Feminine. I have sat within many circles and immersions with women as we explored how to practically and powerfully engage Feminine wisdom in everyday life.
Driving into Soul Sanctuary last weekend, I noticed the trees were engaged in a wild dance.
I should have paid closer attention as I got out of the car, because the wind nearly took me with it. Walking to the door, I had to lean in and brace myself for a moment just to stay upright. The cold whipped through my clothes and found every uncovered space, sharing its bone-numbing chill.
We recently had a big snow in my neck of the woods. Everyone was hunkered down. The fridge was full, chicken soup was bubbling on the stove, and my book pile sat patiently on the coffee table. As a kid, snowstorms were pure joy.
“I think we need to be friends.”
Those were the first words out of my mouth when I introduced myself to Rev. Hilda Covington. We’d just finished a county meeting of nonprofit mental health and social service agencies. She was the presenter that month. We almost didn’t meet because Hilda arrived an hour and a half late to a two-hour meeting.
Life has a rhythm. It speeds up and slows down according to mysterious forces.
Your personal rhythm dances with the celestial bodies, seasons of the year, developmental phases, and the pulse of your Soulful evolutionary process. Living in harmony with these rhythms is in many ways hard to understand as it is a complicated and deeply personal process. Your rhythm dances with everyone’s rhythm in the grand Cosmic Dance.
There are conversations you may instinctively avoid. Death. Dying. The journey beyond are among them. The final exhale. The closing of the body. The long walk home. The next place of being. In many ancient traditions, this is not an ending, but a sacred passage—a birth into new realms of being. Yet here, in this fast-moving world, death often remains veiled in silence, wrapped in fear, and avoided in conversation.
